A question about selling stuff

[Bugman Jeff]

Being that I'm an inventive kind of guy, I make a lot of stuff for my vehicles myself. Say I make a widget for my Viper. Other people like my widget, and want one for their car. I'm just a guy in my garage, not a big manufacturer or retailer of any sort, but the widgets are easy enough to make that I can make more. Can I sell my widgets on the forum without being a supporting vendor? Thanks for the info.

P.S. I don't currently have any widgets to sell, nor do I have any planned, I'm just thinking it's possible I might at some point.

[ACRucrazy]

I would hate to see the supporting vendor requirement hold any enthusiast back from making widgets for other members. IMO it's pretty obvious when someone is a vendor or not. A vendor is a business. Offers several parts for one or more vehicles etc as primary income or purpose of a website/company.

A hobbyist who may be able to make some widgets in their garage for members here or there as supplemental income only helps the Viper community. The Viper needs all the help it can get in the custom parts category IMO. Fellow member made widgets are always welcome in my book! But I don't make the rules. Those are just my thoughts :)

[Whitemamba]

What about the vendor though who pays to be a supporting vendor? Let's just hypothesize and say that the person selling stuff makes and sells stuff that the vendor sells. Now that would kind of be unfair to the vendor right? And where do you draw the line at what a non-supporting vendor/person sells? A good example might be the person who makes billet or carbon fiber license frames. He might theoretically be competing with a vendor. I agree that it is nice to see someone make stuff for the viper but wouldn't this also discourage some vendors? Here is another example. Let's say that you have a guy who is good at working with carbon fiber. He makes some cool intake/filter housings/covers. Wouldn't this encroach on a vendors area of stuff that he pays to sell?

[Fatboy 18]

I think the only guy that did get told not to post up more stuff was Tim on the other site (a few years back), some of his machined aluminium parts had a Sneaky Pete and Fangs logo on them and Dodge did not like it?

How did King Snake get on when he made a small batch of rear diffuser blades? I don't think he was ever told not to advertise the product?

As long as it is just a small batch of something I can't see it causing any harm and you never know, a larger Vendor may like the product so much that they might help you produce more of the item to sell through their business?

Just my thoughts :)

[Viper Girl]

We've only been open to the public for a month now, we are still setting policy... At this point if you have a couple of widgets, post some in the classifieds see what happens. If members are interested etc. As a side note though, not saying this *should be policy... Just my opinion.... If someone is on here selling their widgets and making $, I'd hope they are VOA members at the very least. This is a perfect time to test the widget waters... Classifieds are open... go for it.

[slitherv10]

We've only been open to the public for a month now, we are still setting policy... At this point if you have a couple of widgets, post some in the classifieds see what happens. If members are interested etc. As a side note though, not saying this *should be policy... Just my opinion.... If someone is on here selling their widgets and making $, I'd hope they are VOA members at the very least. This is a perfect time to test the widget waters... Classifieds are open... go for it.


Totally agree....:t1236:

[SSGNRDZ_28]

I currently make one widget for the Viper and hopefully more in the future. This isn’t my primary source of income but I do have a business (the Viper parts being a very small percentage of the income).

I understand the point about supporting vendors paying but the flip side is if I have to pay to advertise the products I make it may not make it worth it to make them or I may have to raise my prices such that nobody buys them. It is somewhat of a catch-22. I don’t really know how to draw the line. Maybe a tiered fee of some sort?

Clearly the best place to advertise for Viper parts is on the various forums. In the past I’ve just posted some threads about my products and / or replied as it has come up – no aggressive advertising as I don’t want to overstep my bounds.

I make the parts because I’m passionate about the Viper. One thing I don’t really want to do is compete, the market just isn’t that big. I’m not going to make anything that already exists (unless I can make it much cheaper or much better).

This is a good discussion and one I’ll be watching the outcome of for obvious reasons. The Viper community is small enough that it needs independent people making widgets. The quantities are low and that’s most of the reason for the dreaded “Viper tax” IMO. Too much advertising expense would drive up prices to a degree.

Does the club need to generate income with site sponsors or is it just icing on the cake? Or is the demand there so it is something that is offered to vendors?